Shane completes Minerva's menu

Wednesday

Jan 25, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 26, 2012 at 10:43 AM

By GEORGE AUSTIN

By GEORGE AUSTIN

Editor

SOMERSET — When Rick Shane walked into Minerva's II Bar & Grill for dinner one day last May, he told the server that he did not know what he wanted. The server said "Why don't you start at the top?" So Shane ordered the first item at the top of the menu and thus began a goal he had to try all 91 items on the menu. The next time he came in and the server asked what he wanted, he said "the next thing on the menu."

When Shane would come in for lunch or dinner and server Leanne Talbot was working, she would know what was next on the menu for Shane and would not let him drift from the order.

He finished eating everything on the menu this month.

"There are things that I've never eaten in my life that I got to eat or try," Shane said.

Shane had never had a Greek pizza in his life and said he could not believe how "fantastic" it tasted. Instead of trying the rest of the pizzas on the menu individually, he had one pizza with every topping on it. Because of that, Minerva's has named a pizza in his honor called "Ultimate Pizza." "It was trial by error," Shane said. "I thought it was going to stink with all that food, but it actually was pretty good." Server Brandon Swenson told him to try a bleu cheese hamburger and he said he loved it. He said the burgers at the restaurant are "really good." Shane said his favorite items on the menu were spinach salad, "Pete's Wicked Pie," a pizza with barbecue sauce instead of tomato sauce. His said his favorite appetizer was shrimp saganaki which was garlic sauteed shrimp, with diced tomatoes, fresh basil and finished with feta cheese.

Shane came into the restaurant once a week for lunch and twice a week for dinner during his quest to finish the menu.

"I like to go out to eat a lot," Shane said. "There's a lot of great restaurants in the area, but I like to eat hometown. You can go to Boston or Providence, but you can get a great meal in Somerset." Shane had to go through 14 different pasta dishes, which he said made him miserable eating pasta so often. But he said he liked the chicken tossed in homemade vodka cream sauce that is offered with a choice of fettucini, spaghetti or ziti.

Shane said he ordered the dishes exactly the way they were on the menu. He did not make any changes. Shane said he did not like the Caesar salad on the menu.

Shane had eight items to go on the menu when Minerva's came out with a new menu, but they let him order from the old menu until he was finished. When he finished the menu, he autographed it for the restaurant.